


A Halo of Cherry Blossoms

by SlowQuotesQuill



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama & Romance, Fluff, Future Fic, Graduation, Kouhai Kageyama Tobio, Love Confessions, M/M, Senpai Hinata Shouyou, Senpai Notice Me, Senpai-Kouhai Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:40:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24107632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlowQuotesQuill/pseuds/SlowQuotesQuill
Summary: A senpai's graduation is always a difficult time.—Especially, especially, if over the course of two years you had already fallen in love with that rowdy, shrimpy, bright-haired senpai, without him even noticing.Yes, a senpai's graduation is always difficult.…But it is also your last chance to finally let out the crashing waves of yearning inside.(Or, an AU where Hinata Shouyou is one grade level above Kageyama Tobio.)
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 4
Kudos: 85





	A Halo of Cherry Blossoms

**Author's Note:**

> Concept inspired by the Kagehina doujin _The Sun Above Me_ by Bubunhaten, though story is not really related.

The second half of March arrived with the heavy scent of cherry blossoms and salt. 

Even after days and months and years, Kageyama Tobio thinks that he will still remember that morning, because he had woken up right before his alarm rang and felt the gentle caress of the wind on his damp cheek, entering from his slightly-opened window.

If one were to look at his study table, one may see a small, crudely-made, imperfect circle of fresh cherry blossoms placed on its varnished surface. 

Inspired by another fit of romanticism, Yachi had taught all of the first- and second-years how to do it, all of them making one each as a sort of going-away present to the graduating seniors of the club. Though he had listened carefully to her demonstration about how to do it and had toiled for several hours last night in his room to get his flower crown look exactly like hers, in the end he had to give up with the too-intricate method that she had shown to tie up the blossoms together, and just did the rest with a glue gun that he had borrowed from Miwa's old school things. The result of last evening's efforts now stared back at him from the top of his desk, looking sad and a little expectant at the same time, as though it knew it belonged someplace else. 

He couldn't bear to look at it for one second longer, so he stuffed it unceremoniously in his bag instead. He could already hear Tsukishima's snide voice taunting him once he sees his poorly-made project, in that supremely annoying way that he almost always had. 

_Heh, I guess kings are better suited to wearing crowns, not making them._

To his slight surprise, Miwa, her hair in a messy bun, was in the kitchen when he came down the stairs. "You didn't mention you're coming home today," he grumbled, and her eyebrows knitted together in that familiar sort of way that made the resemblance between them even uncannier. "What, I can't come home once in a while?" she snapped, and brought out the breakfast she had made: fish and rice and a little soup. He sat across the table from her, and the Kageyama siblings silently brought their hands together over the food and started eating. 

Miwa's cooking was not good, though it wasn't too bad either; he thought that eating this was better than having to eat his usual toast anyway. The house was even quieter than usual; their parents must have gone to town early in the morning for something. He glanced instinctively at the fridge to see if there was a note, but only the usual collection of sticky-notes greeted his eyes: _Bring out the burnable trash on so-and-so. Make sure the yard is swept every morning. Wash the dishes when you're done eating. Bring in the mail before you go to school._

Miwa followed his line of sight and seemed to have instantaneously known what he was thinking about. "They're getting back at around the afternoon or so. It's Sunday—do you have something important to do today?" 

"Yeah," he said, and finished with his meal, stood up. "I need to go to school for… club activities." 

Miwa looked a little doubtful, but when he cleared up the table and helped her wash the dishes, she didn't say a word. 

The morning passed extremely slowly. He had already finished all of his chores when Yachi finally emailed them the time they were supposed to meet, which was also around the time when the graduation ceremony held in the quad would be almost over. Miwa only had the time to tell him to take care when he finally sprinted past her in the living room, already in his school uniform, and he could only muster the time to reply that he will, before finally stepping out into the still-wintry outdoors. 

The early-morning weather was pretty, and Kageyama would have grudgingly appreciated it as a perfect day for some light exercise if it were any other day, but he reached the gates of Karasuno High School with nothing but perhaps a more forceful pound of his sneakers on the concrete, as though trying to punish his traitorous feet for taking him where he least wanted to go. 

Beside the gate, the sign announcing the commencement exercises for Karasuno High stood proudly, its high black lettering brushed on in glistening black paint. When he strained his ears, he could hear a slight applause from the direction of the quad; the ceremony was probably starting to wrap up. Yachi had said to meet in a vacant second-year classroom instead of in the club room, which is where she would be instructing the seniors to go and wait for them to give their surprises, and he was just about to head to their agreed spot when his phone suddenly went off with an email notification. 

_Race you to the gym, Bakayama._

—Even without glancing at the sender's name, he instantly understood. 

His feet immediately changed direction and he sprinted, away from the school building and toward the volleyball club's gym. To his slight annoyance, the door was already unlocked when he tried sliding it open, and when he finally stepped inside, his shoes making that familiar, addicting squeaking sound on the parquet flooring, his stomach made a weird flip-flop as it tried to soar and drop at the same time. 

_Ah._

The sigh escaped his throat, the sound of anticipation. 

Ah. 

—There he was. 

As he had already expected, Hinata Shouyou was already by the other end of the court, bouncing a volleyball off the wall. His diploma and black school jacket were lying by the side, the latter folded carelessly and leaving him in his white long-sleeved undershirt. He had rolled the sleeves up to his elbow to expose his glistening forearms, already slick with sweat. 

"Hey, dumbass." 

At the sound of Kageyama's call, Hinata caught the ball neatly in his hands as it bounced back to him yet again, and glanced at his junior's direction. 

His bright hair had already grown slightly longer than how Kageyama remembered it during their first year together; it now curled around his ears, reinforcing the roundness of his face even more. He had also grown slightly as well, though Kageyama was still a head taller than he was—something that will probably never change even after many, many years. 

—Though, speaking of something that has not changed, the huge grin on Hinata's face was also very much the same. 

"Kageyama-kun. Couldn't you speak to me with respect, even just for the very last time?" 

Even though his words were complaining, his tone and body language suggested that he wasn't that offended; he was already walking to the end line, and Kageyama instantly found himself mirroring the move at his side of the court. An impatient toss of his bag and jacket to the floor and a quick movement to unbutton and roll his sleeves up, and he was finally ready; it felt weird to be playing in his stiff school uniform, though when he finally spread his feet on the floor and lowered himself into a more ideal receiving stance, he found that he didn't really care. 

"—First one to fifteen wins," Hinata declared. 

Tersely, Kageyama only nodded. 

—Hinata raised the ball in his left hand, and without another word, drove it to the other side with a good serve. 

They played tirelessly, taking turns serving and receiving serves since it really was all that they could do with only the two of them, and Kageyama could only perhaps cite force of habit as the only thing that was helping him from losing track of the points that they were making. There were several insistent messages and calls that kept his phone ringing for the first fifteen minutes past Yachi's meeting time, but Kageyama ignored it all, and if Hinata had noticed the electronic sounds coming from _his_ phone, perhaps Tanaka and Nishinoya asking where he might be right now, he made no notice of it. For now, for these short precious minutes, Kageyama thought, it was only the two of them existing, and the entire world was only the confines of this volleyball court—and if he lets the ball drop in his side of the net one more time, he swore silently, he'll keep his mouth shut forever and ever and perhaps throw away the poor excuse for a flower crown that he had crushed inside his bag— 

Hinata launched himself up when his spike bounced off Kageyama's arms and returned to his court, and Kageyama tensed for a block— 

The ball slammed into his hands, heavy and real, and when it fell perfectly inside the line on the right side of the court, Hinata groaned and dropped to his knees, dog-tired. 

"Fifteen." Kageyama dusted the knees of his trousers and straightened up, his eyes gleaming oddly as they rested on Hinata, who had seated himself cross-legged on the floor. "I win, senpai." 

The sudden use of the honorific, so rarely heard in the past, seemed to surprise Hinata mightily, and he grabbed the bottom of the net to help himself up to his feet and stare back at Kageyama. 

"What a cheeky kouhai you are, Kageyama." 

"Hardly. I thought you'd prefer me to treat you with a little more respect for today." 

"Yes," Hinata murmured with a slight smile, "but I've decided that hearing it from your mouth, spoken in your voice, doesn't make it sound any less cheeky." 

They both fell silent on either side of the thin net, going back to staring at each other, as though they hadn't quite seen each other as clearly as they did now. Kageyama, finally noticing the silence that had befallen the gym, figured that Yachi and the others must have already connected the dots as to their whereabouts. Hinata's phone was mercilessly silent, too—hopefully, that meant that none of the other third-years would be bursting into the scene right now, or everything would be ruined— 

"You won, Kageyama." 

The slight smile was still on Hinata's lips; behind him, the golden morning sunlight trailing through the high windows of the gym rested softly on his hair. 

Kageyama bowed his head slightly, breaking eye contact. "How many wins does that make?" 

"Fifty-one for you, fifty for me, and three ties." 

"So this really is my win before you go." 

"Yes," Hinata said, absently. "For now, yes it is." 

There was something in his voice that made Kageyama look up, and when his gaze returned upon Hinata's face, there was a slight shock when he realized the emotions coursing on his former partner's face: extreme pride and joy, and also extreme sadness. 

"Please excuse me a moment." 

Kageyama stepped away from the net, retrieved the crown of cherry blossoms, and ran back to bow deeply. Hinata watched him with an air of slight confusion, then comprehension dawning on his small face. 

"Hinata-senpai. Thank you very much for your guidance." 

Hinata probably looked more than a little surprised, because he took a moment before finally letting out a nervous chuckle. 

"Oh?! Are you actually thanking me? Wow, I feel kind of embarrassed—" 

Shedding his pretense at politeness, Kageyama crossed the net to roughly jam the crown on Hinata's head and shut him up, all the while feeling his face burning furiously. 

"Of course I am thanking you! …dumbass Hinata." 

At the familiar insult, which did not even sound like an insult any longer, Hinata stared at him in wonder, the crumpled, poorly-crafted halo of cherry blossoms slowly disintegrating on his head, and Kageyama thought that the petals slowly falling apart and drifting down to get tangled in his bright curls was perhaps as beautiful a sight as any he had seen while playing his beloved sport. 

Hinata slowly brought a hand up, touching the cherry blossoms on his head with an air of amazement. 

"—What's this?" 

"Yachi-san made us do it for everyone. It doesn't look nice at all, but—" Kageyama looked away, frowning horribly. "I worked hard." 

Hinata laughed, a sincere sound. "Uwa, I'll treasure this handmade present from the hardworking Kageyama-kun." A little uncertainly, he added, "Though, now that you've given me a present, I kind of want to give you one, too—" 

"Then… I'd like to have the answer that you promised me." 

"Ah." Hinata was smiling, slightly pink in the face. "That." 

"I've asked you this before, senpai." 

Kageyama swallowed, and slightly trembling, pushed on. 

"Would you go out with me?" 

_"—Please go out with me."_

_Hinata had only stared up at him back then, a laugh still half-frozen on his face, as though Kageyama's words had stopped all time. The rest of the volleyball club had already gone home; Hinata had just been wheeling the ball cart into the shed when Kageyama, who was trailing behind him and bearing the mop, had spoken._

_"Stop messing around, Kageyama-kun, you—"_

_"Does it look like I'm joking?"_

_—The look in Kageyama's dark eyes perhaps told Hinata what he needed to know._

_"—E, eh? Go out… with you? Why?"_

_"Because I like Hinata-senpai." A quick answer, without a trace of hesitation at all. "And I don't like it when you treat me as just another kid."_

_Hinata's eyes had also lost all traces of laughter still in them. He looked like a deer in the headlights—with his stiff arms, and wide eyes, and gaping mouth._

_"I—I need to th-think about it." His voice was wavering._

_Kageyama gripped the mop handle so hard that his knuckles turned white._

No, _he thought,_ He didn't say no. Something like this is… better… 

_"I understand. Then…"_

_—Kageyama's voice, on the contrary, was steady in its conviction._

_"Then," Kageyama repeated, "if I ever get more wins than you do before you leave Karasuno behind… on your last day, please give me your answer then."_

_Hinata, nerves probably already frazzled by the sudden confession, simply nodded, eyes still bulging in their sockets._

_"I'll make sure to win," Kageyama replied, simply. "And I'll force you to see me as more than just your kouhai."_

"Your answer. Please." 

Hinata was just watching him for such a long time that Kageyama almost feared that he might break the promise, but then he said, "Wait here, Kageyama." 

Puzzled, Kageyama watched as Hinata went over to his things and clambered back with his school jacket in hand. 

"Hold out your hand." 

Kageyama hesitantly did as requested, wondering what Hinata was up to. 

When Hinata finally put his hand in Kageyama's and drew it away, what was left in his palm was a familiar-looking button. 

Kageyama gaped at it blankly, thumbing it to inspect it more closely. It was a regular button from the Karasuno boys' school uniform, with the crest of the school engraved on it in gold. When Kageyama glanced up at Hinata askance, Hinata held up his jacket, and showed the frayed thread of where the second button used to be. 

"—And that's my answer, too, Kageyama." 

Kageyama continued to stare at Hinata, mouth slightly open, as though in total disbelief at the existence of the button in his palm right now. Hinata coughed, awkwardly, and held out his hand. 

"If you don't want it, I can always take it back, you know." 

"N—" Kageyama quickly clenched the button in his fist and shoved it in his pocket, scowling terribly. "It's mine! It's mine already." 

"Oh!" And there was that smile again, lighting up Hinata's features, and a cherry blossom petal fell from the crown and onto the very tip of his nose. Kageyama stared at the petal, looking, yet not seeing it, at the same time. 

_—Cute._

Kageyama wondered if his face looked as warm as it felt, because he felt like he could melt away anytime, now. 

"Hinata, your nose—" His hand closed the distance to take it away, but before his fingers made contact with the petal, Hinata suddenly grabbed his wrist and pulled him down— 

Actually, _way_ down than he expected, so that the top of his head was level with Hinata's chin—

"My _real_ present!" 

…The tender, hesitant touch of lips against his forehead felt like the peck of a baby bird. 

Kageyama felt like he could burst into flames at that very moment, and Hinata could get swallowed up in it as well, and no one in the whole wide world would have noticed— 

"We'll win nationals," was what came out of his mouth, instead of the soft words that people in novels usually say in these types of situations, and inwardly he cursed himself for still being so rigidly _himself,_ even at a time like this, and yet—

—and yet—

Why does this feel so right? 

"Thank you," Hinata murmured against his forehead, and suddenly it felt like the moment passed too soon and he was already drawing away and letting go of his hand, and Kageyama was feeling an odd sense of having something dear taken so suddenly from him. 

"Senpai, that was…" 

"I—I wasn't too forward, was I?" Hinata had a horrified look on his face. Kageyama felt something like a weird laughter bubbling in his chest. 

"Not at all." He bowed his head slightly. "And… I meant what I said." 

"Of course." Hinata grinned. "Besides, you're vice-captain now, so you have to help Yamaguchi lead everyone to victory this year. Okay?" 

Kageyama's throat was so tight that he can only nod at those words. 

"—Be a great senpai to everyone, okay?" 

"I… will." 

Even as Hinata held his hand out and led him out of the gym and into the sunlight outside, Kageyama couldn't think of anything else but the memories. 

Memories of Hinata Shouyou, surprise etched on his childlike face during their first meeting— _"Kageyama Tobio?! Why are you here?"_ —Memories of Hinata Shouyou, eyes screwed up in concentration when trying to hit that impossible quick— _"Toss it to me!"_ —Memories of Hinata Shouyou, flattening his hair with his hands in an attempt to imitate Kageyama— _"The setter is the coolest person on the court!"_ —Memories of Hinata Shouyou, eating beef stew with tears and snot streaming down his face, still reeling from their devastating loss from Seijou— _"Next time, we'll definitely—!"_ —Memories of Hinata Shouyou, forcing a Garigari Yogurt into his hands every lunchtime just because— _"That's what a senpai is supposed to do, Kageyama!"_ —Memories of Hinata Shouyou staying behind and practicing with him, tirelessly, even after Captain and the others had already left for the day— _"One more! Give it to me, one more!"_ —Memories of Hinata Shouyou, the sunlight streaming through the windows of the gym and hitting his hair every which angle and making him look like a phoenix, because everytime Kageyama thought that he'd fall for the last time, he'd always get back up— _"Kageyama, don't tell me you've given up? Because I haven't, yet."_ —

Memories of Hinata Shouyou, because remembering him means remembering the memories of two bright, joyous years of spring—

"Don't look like that, Kageyama-kun." 

His head jerked up in surprise. Hinata was looking back at him, with something like sorrow and joy yet again mingling in his dark eyes. 

"It's finally spring, after all." 


End file.
